Fischer/Oswald over come Rice/Thornley to reach the quarters – Salzburg Indoors 2011 CH
Unseeded in the doubles draw, the local duo of Martin Fischer and Philipp Oswald, registered a comprehensive victory over the unseeded British pair of David Rice and Sean Thornley in the opening round of the Salzburg Indoors on
Monday afternoon.
The competition was played on the hard courts of Salzburg, Austria, with the two local contestants winning the day for their home crowd. Fischer and Oswald took one hour and fourteen minutes of play to wrap up victory in straight
sets, 7-5, 6-4, to book a berth in the quarter-final rounds of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Challenger Tour event in style.
It was pretty one-sided affair, with the Austrians dominating for most of the time. Rice and Thornley posed some resistances earlier on but tend to crumble in the intense pressure situations of the matchup, coughing a number of
unforced errors to let their opponent take away the advantage. Fischer and Oswald keep clinching crucial points throughout the contest to remain one step ahead of their opponents and finished off the contest in their favour to reach the next stage of the ATP
Challenger event.
Fischer and Oswald secured 32 out of 44 first serve points in the matchup, with their British opponents lagging behind at 26, and converted four of their seven break opportunities to come out as the winner. Rice and Thornley had
six break chances in the game but they squandered away four of the vital opportunities to finish on the losing side in the end.
The unseeded Austrians took off the opener with a cracking serve break to put the Britons under pressure early. Rice and Thornley replied with a break point conversion shortly afterwards but a critical break of serve in the 12th
game closed out the first set for Fischer and Oswald at 7-5, giving them 1-0 lead in the competition.
The following set was a complete replication of the first one, with Fischer and Oswald registering two break points in reply to their opponent’s one conversion to seal a comprehensive victory at 6-4.
Fischer and Oswald will either take on the third seeded duo of Karol Beck of Slovakia and Frank Moser of German or the unseeded Pole team of Andriej Kapas and Mateusz Kowalczyk in the next encounter to fight for a place in the
semis of the Salzburg Indoors. The third seeded pair will take on the Pole competitors in the opening round clash on Tuesday afternoon and the winner will meet Fischer and Oswald in the quarter-final.
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